Baptism records are kept at the church, civil records at the town hall. Depends on what destroyed them. Earthquakes can affect one building but not the next. Fires are usually just in one place. War often only affected the civil records. You might get lucky.

Any tips on how to find out which churches were around in Torella dei Lombardi in 1885 and how to contact them for a Baptism record? Any other Italian documents that could substitute if the Baptism record was destroyed too?

The birth certificate that was destroyed at the comune is on LDS microfilm - would the comune re-create a birth certificate based on that?

If the originals still exist the Comune MIGHT reconstruct the record. However, in that area, I believe an earthquake destroyed the originals that the Mormons filmed and last time I asked they said they coud not reconstruct without the original.You can find the parish churches at www.chiesacattolica.it

As far as I know, it was only as of 1917 that individual parishes sent copies of their records to their dioceses (not sure if this was mandated or voluntary), so I doubt you will have luck at the diocese level securing a record copy from 1885, even if the records there were not destroyed by that earthquake.

Thank you so much for the tips ItalySearcher and Erudita! Unfortunately the e-mail address for diocesisantangelo.it is kicking back my messages, but at least it gives me a place to start and I will most likely send them a regular letter through the mail to see if I can have any luck. Thanks again for the input!

Just replying to say that I tried the e-mail address (curia) every day and finally today it worked, so we will see where that leads. Someone on a different site told me that a copy of her birth certificate may also be in the Avellino state archives in addition to the one that was lost at the comune - does this sound accurate?

I was able to get my GGF's records from Avellino (though born in a different comune), so you should try there as well. I believe that the LDS records were actually filmed at the state level, so my guess is that they will have it. Good luck.